I thought according to the FCC wireless is a good substitute for landlines so we don't really need landline competition or Net Neutrality.

It is almost like Verizon is saying they can't handle users using wireless devices as a landline substitute.

I can't say I blame Verizon here. Ensuring you are exclusively roaming as a way around throttles is going to get you banned. It does however highlight that wireless is not capable of being a wireline substitute.

Users who primarily roam off network are *always* money losers for carriers, there is no FCC requirement for cell providers to continue providing service to these people. All the carriers have a clause in their terms of use that allow for termination of service if users use "roaming" cells for a larger proportion of their usage.Really, users like this should be purchasing their cellular access from the local provider.

I thought according to the FCC wireless is a good substitute for landlines so we don't really need landline competition or Net Neutrality.

It is almost like Verizon is saying they can't handle users using wireless devices as a landline substitute.

I think what Verizon is saying is that maybe people replacing their wired connections with wireless should maybe do it with the actual local carrier instead of trying to carve it out of Verizon's roaming policy. I don't think anyone wants to go back to the days of roaming being a real thing for the end user.

If this is for home internet, and Verizon is roaming in the area, why not just sign up for the carrier who actually owns the towers you're using. I can understand Verizon not wanting to lose money on these customers month after month. These people would be better served signing up for the carriers that own these towers.

If this is for home internet, and Verizon is roaming in the area, why not just sign up for the carrier who actually owns the towers you're using. I can understand Verizon not wanting to lose money on these customers month after month. These people would be better served signing up for the carriers that own these towers.

because they would be capped. Wireless makes a shitty substitute for wireline service. I mean even crappy wireline caps are generous compared to the average cellular plan.

To be clear I am not blaming Verizon. A customer using 1TB of roaming each month isn't viable. I am just pointing out these users have no real good option. These people were doing this INTENTIONALLY to get around throttling and caps by exploiting the fact that Verizon can't throttle Verizon users when they are roaming on a peer network.

Users who primarily roam off network are *always* money losers for carriers, there is no FCC requirement for cell providers to continue providing service to these people. All the carriers have a clause in their terms of use that allow for termination of service if users use "roaming" cells for a larger proportion of their usage.Really, users like this should be purchasing their cellular access from the local provider

The bolded part is exactly what Pai has to do about this. There very very often IS NO other provider, local or otherwise.

This is why I've been saying wireless networks are at best a short term stop-gap measure and we need to compel ISP's to build out actual infrastructure. By which I mean hardwired broadband not this cellular nonsense. There is no limit on how much data you can run through cable because you can always run more cable. Although several scummy ISPs put arbitrary limits to maximize profits and screw over the curious.

Users who primarily roam off network are *always* money losers for carriers, there is no FCC requirement for cell providers to continue providing service to these people. All the carriers have a clause in their terms of use that allow for termination of service if users use "roaming" cells for a larger proportion of their usage.Really, users like this should be purchasing their cellular access from the local provider

The bolded part is exactly what Pai has to do about this. There very very often IS NO other provider, local or otherwise.

MO-NOP-OH-LEY

I guess the counterpoint in this case is that the literal problem is that there is a local provider that the customer should be buying from instead of Verizon.

Users who primarily roam off network are *always* money losers for carriers, there is no FCC requirement for cell providers to continue providing service to these people. All the carriers have a clause in their terms of use that allow for termination of service if users use "roaming" cells for a larger proportion of their usage.Really, users like this should be purchasing their cellular access from the local provider

The bolded part is exactly what Pai has to do about this. There very very often IS NO other provider, local or otherwise.

MO-NOP-OH-LEY

Well there has to be another provider because they were roaming on someone's network.

Still wireless is no substitute for wireline service except in the most desperate of conditions.

mobile device is an ipadbe a farmer and use a service like http://climate.comdo frequent downloads of various high res satellite images, especially alternative light spectrum, of your fields to monitor growth, soil temp, etc. Now add in live and historical weather radar and weather sat images..Use a variable rate planter and do live uploads of all the data as you plantDitto for harvest, doing live yield and grain moisture readings every few feet

All done mobile because it's not practical to string fiber or coax to your tractor/combine etc.

farmers, even small ones are very high tech these days.

oh... and then in the evenings, steam movies and such for the family since you are so far out that no broadband provider will serve you...

Users who primarily roam off network are *always* money losers for carriers, there is no FCC requirement for cell providers to continue providing service to these people. All the carriers have a clause in their terms of use that allow for termination of service if users use "roaming" cells for a larger proportion of their usage.Really, users like this should be purchasing their cellular access from the local provider

The bolded part is exactly what Pai has to do about this. There very very often IS NO other provider, local or otherwise.

MO-NOP-OH-LEY

If they are roaming there there is obviously a local provider that they can use.

because they would be capped. Wireless makes a shitty substitute for wireline service. I mean even crappy wireline caps are generous compared to the average service plan.

To be clear I am not blaming Verizon. 1TB in roaming isn't viable. I am just pointing out these users have no real good option. These people were doing this INTENTIONALLY to get around throttling and caps by exploiting the fact that Verizon can't throttle Verizon users when they are roaming on a peer network.

Yup, pretty much this right here.

I had to use AT&T wifi for internet here (old building back off the road and $15,000 to get cable run to it...) for a while and used their hotspot. Just doing 'normal' usage (some video/email/etc) would run me 10-15GB/month in data if I didn't watch it, so even allowing for 10 times that as 'normal' usage, these users are a full 10 times higher than that.

I do a ton of downloading, uploading and such at home on my business class connection, and I don't even hit anywhere CLOSE to 1TB/month.

because they would be capped. Wireless makes a shitty substitute for wireline service. I mean even crappy wireline caps are generous compared to the average cellular plan.

LTE is actually more than good enough to be most people's main internet these days, the carriers have just played the long con into getting people to believe that caps are necessary. They absolutely are not. In the rare circumstances where the network is overloaded, it should slow down all traffic evenly until the congestion is over, like wired internet connections do. Caps are purely a cash grab, there's no technical reason for them at all, on any connection.

Users who primarily roam off network are *always* money losers for carriers, there is no FCC requirement for cell providers to continue providing service to these people. All the carriers have a clause in their terms of use that allow for termination of service if users use "roaming" cells for a larger proportion of their usage.Really, users like this should be purchasing their cellular access from the local provider

The bolded part is exactly what Pai has to do about this. There very very often IS NO other provider, local or otherwise.

MO-NOP-OH-LEY

If they are roaming there there is obviously a local provider that they can use.

And if these people regularly drive an hour away for work, family, fun, and would be out of their local provider's territory on a frequent basis? There's plenty of reasonable explanations to be on Verizon.

I thought according to the FCC wireless is a good substitute for landlines so we don't really need landline competition or Net Neutrality.

It is almost like Verizon is saying they can't handle users using wireless devices as a landline substitute.

I think what Verizon is saying is that maybe people replacing their wired connections with wireless should maybe do it with the actual local carrier instead of trying to carve it out of Verizon's roaming policy. I don't think anyone wants to go back to the days of roaming being a real thing for the end user.

And how exactly would an individual know they're roaming?

Quote:

"From a customer perspective, there’s no visible difference between being on Verizon’s network or [an LRA] partner,"

So much for having the 'best' network outside of metropolitan areas. Why can't Verizon throttle roaming users? Tmobile does when I'm international as my roaming phone is still a Tmobile IP block (which BTW works great for Netflix).

because they would be capped. Wireless makes a shitty substitute for wireline service. I mean even crappy wireline caps are generous compared to the average cellular plan.

LTE is actually more than good enough to be most people's main internet these days, the carriers have just played the long con into getting people to believe that caps are necessary. They absolutely are not. In the rare circumstances where the network is overloaded, it should slow down all traffic evenly until the congestion is over, like wired internet connections do. Caps are purely a cash grab, there's no technical reason for them at all, on any connection.

Well the reality is many providers do exactly that but it is still a poor substitute. With LTE you might have (under ideal conditions) 300 Mbps available at the tower but there are hundreds of users sharing that. Now all residential service is shared but the contention here (users to gross bandwidth) is much higher.

So yeah I agree throttle is better than caps for network management and it is why many providers (Verizon included) are moving towards it but you can't get blood from a stone. It is better than nothing and I likely would use LTE over say <3Mbps DSL but it is far from ideal.

If this is for home internet, and Verizon is roaming in the area, why not just sign up for the carrier who actually owns the towers you're using. I can understand Verizon not wanting to lose money on these customers month after month. These people would be better served signing up for the carriers that own these towers.

For someone like me, who has a Verizon plan currently, that moves from the 'city' to the 'country', I'd be a little upset about this. Especially since I've been a loyal Verizon customer for years simply because I like their service and other than one minor quirk, that they actually fixed although it did take them some time to figure it out, its been pretty decent overall.

Yeah, I'd be a a bit pissed off to have to change plans because of this. And since every carrier pretty much has an online webstore it really shouldn't matter where I live if they offer the best service for the price I want to pay.

Users who primarily roam off network are *always* money losers for carriers, there is no FCC requirement for cell providers to continue providing service to these people. All the carriers have a clause in their terms of use that allow for termination of service if users use "roaming" cells for a larger proportion of their usage.Really, users like this should be purchasing their cellular access from the local provider

The bolded part is exactly what Pai has to do about this. There very very often IS NO other provider, local or otherwise.

MO-NOP-OH-LEY

Did you EVEN RTFA?

They are cutting of the egregious ROAMERS. That means that there is a LOCAL PROVIDER that Verizon has a ROAMING agreement with.

Users who primarily roam off network are *always* money losers for carriers, there is no FCC requirement for cell providers to continue providing service to these people. All the carriers have a clause in their terms of use that allow for termination of service if users use "roaming" cells for a larger proportion of their usage.Really, users like this should be purchasing their cellular access from the local provider

The bolded part is exactly what Pai has to do about this. There very very often IS NO other provider, local or otherwise.

MO-NOP-OH-LEY

Did you EVEN RTFA?

They are cutting of the egregious ROAMERS. That means that there is a LOCAL PROVIDER that Verizon has a ROAMING agreement with.

I'll admit my comments were geared for the broader state of broadband/wireless, but are still applicable to the article.

It most likely is only A local provider.Why is there ONLY a local provider(s)? Why isn't Verizon operating in the area with their own service? I suspect many of the folks in these areas have paid fees/taxes that have gone to Verison to increase coverage.How many people have this service as their only option?Verison wants to sell the service as 'across America' but then gets upset when folks actually use the service

They'll show you everything but that in this case. If the FCC were to do anything with the ISP and wireless providers it would be to partner with the FTC and attack them through their advertising. Go after every lie or inconvenient truth they leave out of the information they present to the buying public.

I love the fact about the people who say that "they should've moved to the local provider". Have you ever lived in exurban or rural areas?

Let me give you two examples (note the example is Sprint, based on personal experience, though I have been a Verizon customer in the past.)

1. I live in Winchester, VA, which is 70 miles out of DC (yeah, my commute's a bitch.) The local towers at home have a roaming agreement with Sprint (towers are owned by Shentel). If Sprint did the same thing, I'd be screwed. "Well, just move to your local provider, i.e. Shentel." Well, that's all good and nice, except...Shentel doesn't offer "local service" (trust me, I've looked). Their towers are all Shentel really offers. There is no "local service", phonewise.

2. In my office in Falls Church, VA, we have one tower that serves all the wireless providers in the area. Again, from what I know, this tower is owned by a company whose only service is...that tower. Hence, no "local provider" service (and keep in mind, this is practically in DC!)

Thus, it's perfectly reasonable to believe that there may not have been a local provider to switch to. Not saying that 1TB on wireless is any better, but rather just how uckfupped the whole telecom/internet situation is here in the US. And that's on Verizon (and others.)